gm diet reviews

sharmini peries: welcome to the real newsnetwork. i'm sharmini peries coming to you from baltimore. the case of the life threatening faulty ignitionswitch in gm motors cars that they knew about and concealed since 2002, which caused thedeath of at least 124 people was settled on thursday. the department of justice announcedit had reached a $900 million settlement with

gm diet reviews, general motors, requiring gm to pay out damages.but no one will go to jail, and this has enraged victims and consumer advocates alike. gm acknowledgedit knew that the faulty ignition switch that could turn a car off while it was still runningas far back as 2002, but did not warn authorities. instead it waited until last year to beginrecalling some 2 million affected cars.

the failure to disclose knowledge of thislife-threatening danger to authorities was the basis of a criminal lawsuit. cbs newsspoke to laura christian, who lost her daughter in a car crash with the faulty ignition. laura christian: the individuals at gm needto be held accountable. i just feel bad for all the other parents out there that willnever feel like they have received true justice. peries: longtime consumer advocate ralph nadertold corporate crime reporter letting off general motors, this homicidal fugitive, fromjustice once again desecrates the memory of over 100 victims and counting of general motors'criminality. now joining us to talk about all of this isrena steinzor. she is a professor of law at

the university of maryland's francis kingcarey school of law and founder and past president of the center for progressive reform. prof.steinzor, thank you so much for joining us today. rena steinzor: it's a pleasure to be withyou. peries: we have heard the calls for holdingindividuals accountable, corporate or otherwise, but the department of justice has defendedits actions, and the united states attorney preet bharara said that gm employees cannotbe prosecuted because they were not breaking the law. let's have a look. attorney preet bharara: it's not the casethat it's actually a criminal violation to

put into the stream of commerce a defectiveautomobile that might kill people. the crimes that we can charge are based on laws thatactually exist. peries: so prof. steinzor, what do you thinkof that explanation? steinzor: it makes almost no sense to me.the company signed an agreement that allowed it to escape admitting any criminal culpability,so the deal was without any criminal, acknowledgement of criminal wrongdoing. and it's unclear,but many people doubt that there will ever be any individuals brought to account. the u.s. attorney said he doesn't have thelaws to prosecute the company, and yet he filed documents that had a statement of factsthat was very damning, and showed that the

company had been marketing cars with a defectiveignition switch, promising consumers that the cars were safe for years when many peoplewithin the company knew that there was a serious problem with the switch. in fact, one of thecompany's engineers secretly changed the switch in 2005, redesigned it without telling anybodyand without changing the part number. it was a very good thing, because all the cars soldafter 2005, made after 2005, were safe. but gm left hundreds of thousands of cars on theroad with the defective switch. and convened committees and workgroups and task forcesthat palavered for hours and never bit the bullet on acknowledging this very seriousdefect. it's worth noting that what the bad switchdid was it stalled the car out. so you could

be driving along the road, 45, 50, even 60miles an hour. the car would stall, you would lose power steering and power brakes, theairbag would be disabled. you might very well lose control under those circumstances. andthat's how people were killed. peries: prof. steinzor, this is corporatecriminality. is there any explanation for why the united states attorney treated thecase this way, and why the individuals are not being charged? steinzor: well i've heard many heartrendingexplanations, including the fact that gm was owned by the government for five years. it'snickname during that time was government motors. i actually think it's just a complete failureof will, and some kind of starstruck strange

reaction because the company came in and apologized,said it was sorry, and i wouldn't be surprised if they trotted out mary barra, their ceo,who was very appealing. and i'm sure she made some kind of direct appeal to the u.s. attorney.i would guess that that was true. it's a very disappointing--especially becausethere have been individual drivers, people who were driving the car. the most--the saddestexample is a woman named candice anderson, she's in texas. she lost control of her saturnand ran into a tree, killing her fiancee. and she was charged with reckless homicidefor that accident. and it turned out later that the car had a defective switch, and thejudge expunged all of her criminal record, but not before her parents had to liquidatetheir retirement account to pay for her defense.

so never, rarely have we seen such a discouragingcontradiction, double standard, in justice. peries: i know it's no closure for many people,but how do you evaluate the settlement? steinzor: i think the settlement is poor.the money is a cost of doing business for gm. the u.s. attorney was touting how therewere going to be three federal monitors supervising the company. we can only hope since it continuesto make lots of cars that it will overcome this culture of committee after committeewithout anyone assuming individual accountability. mary barra the ceo has said, she's characterizedthis as the gm nod, that nobody says, i'm going to take responsibility and get thisdone. and that's a very hard thing to overcome. perhaps, had the company been required toacknowledge criminal culpability, it would

have had more--and had individuals been prosecuted,very important, it would have been possible for there to be the kind of shakeup that ithink is required there. peries: and what laws need to be changed asa result of this case that you would advise? steinzor: well, i want to say that i thinkthat there are [inaud.] front statute and a failure to notify statue that gave ampleauthority to the u.s. attorney had he been aggressive. but since he didn't get the message,and this case sets a precedent along with a similar sweetheart deal with toyota, itwould be very, very good if legislation sponsored by senators blumenthal and markey that woulddirectly address motor vehicles, it would be great if that passed. i think that's theleast that congress owes to the victims.

it's 124, but the number is likely to double--atleast double by the time all the dust settles. and that's not counting all the people thatwere injured, and all the people that are waiting to have their cars fixed. it's a verysad tableau. peries: prof. steinzor, i thank you so muchfor joining us today and explaining all of this. steinzor: thank you. peries: and thank you for joining us on thereal news network.